Incentives for Consumers to Reduce Power Consumption

In a column entitled "Mother Nature's Dow", NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman describes five initiatives to help shift away from fossil fuels. According to Friedman, "The fourth is decoupling — the program begun in California that turns the utility business on its head. Under decoupling, power utilities make money by helping homeowners save energy rather than by encouraging them to consume it."

By chance, a relevant clipping I had torn from a December, '08, San Francisco Chronicle article emerged from the paper chaos on my desk. It describes how such a program works for the consumer: "PG&E offers rebates if customers can cut the amount of natural gas they use in January and February, compared with the same months a year earlier. For every percent cut in gas usage, customers receive an equal percent credit on their bill. Those who save 10 percent or more get a 20 percent credit."

Green Roofs, Green Walls

Green roofs are becoming more and more common. To see a spectacular green wall, take a look at http://princetonnaturenotes.blogspot.com/2009/03/walls-go-green-in-madrid.html.

Sustainability in Spain

One of the quandaries for parents, now that it´s clear that the use of fossil fuels is deleterious to the planet, is how to give kids the same mind-opening benefits of travel that we had at that age. Some of my most vivid and joyful childhood memories are of exploring meadows and mountain streams in Austria when I was ten, and hiking in the Andes. Are they really going to be able to manufacture enough jet fuel from farming algae, as one airline magazine article described?

So, traveling in Spain with family, feeling an ambivalence that didn´t enter in ten years ago, the least I can do is take note of sustainable practices. Bicycles in Sevilla, for instance, where they´ve added quite a few bike lanes and made bikes available for borrow. The bikes fit into docks lined up along the sidewalk, and can be borrowed and returned with the help of a plastic card that´s fed into a machine. These have proved very popular. In the historic district, in the vicinity of the cathedral, they´ve made some streets pedestrian and bike only, and reintroduced a trolley. It can feel strange at first, encountering a wide city street, no cars, no racket. Some people miss the energy and the bustle of traffic, but that´s part of the challenge in a world where the romance of motion is so dependent on fossil fuels.

Compact fluorescent light bulbs are more common, as are duel flush toilets. Recycling in the city is achieved through the clustering of large bins of different shapes here and there on sidewalks. Apartment dwellers take recyclables down to the street and toss paper, bottles, cans and trash in their respective bins. The bins for bottles look like green metal igloos that have attracted the interest of sophisticated street artists.

A friend in Caseres even separates out her food waste, which here is called organics, and takes it down to a bin on the street. What happens to it next she doesn´t know, but it sounds like some sort of process is in place.

Though Spain has the lowest birthrate in Europe, it´s also on a building spree, with more building going on here than in England and France combined. Apartment buildings are rising pell mell on the outskirts of Caceres and other cities. Who´s buying them, one might ask. People buy them as investments, apparently, and young adults may be shifting away from the tradition of living with parents well into adulthood. A system of freeways (I remember seeing them being constructed on a previous visit ten years ago) now makes intercity driving in Spain as convenient and boring as in the U.S. 

The trains here are a beautiful thing to behold. The Ave train ("wing" in spanish) we took traveled at 230 kilometers per hour. It´s as quiet and smooth as a plane, and faster when one takes into account all the airport rigamarole that´s avoided. One nice touch: the escalators at the train station turn off automatically when not in use.